The bonfire of the inanities, continued

CAMP FOLLOWERS

By July, polls showed 51 percent of the country felt it had been misled into war. The slide has continued. Dick Cheney is now trailing cholera in opinion surveys.

In early August, with Traitorgate unwrapping and the country, his war, and his administration collapsing around him, Bush did what he always does in a tight spot. He went on an extended vacation. Prior to leaving for his Crawford, Texas, ranch, where he raises photo-ops, he made one of his boilerplate comments about why the war had to continue. It would be a disservice, he maintained, to abandon the "just cause" for which so many brave Americans had died.

This raised a question in the mind of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of one of those brave slain soldiers, Sergeant Casey Sheehan. Since she was in nearby Dallas speaking at the Veterans for Peace conference, she decided to take a ride on the VFP bus over to Crawford to see if the president would take a moment from his busy leisure activities to see her. All she wanted to know was, "Exactly what just cause had Casey died for?"

She let the gatekeepers know she was there and asked if she could please have a word with the president. The answer, more implied than articulated, was "NO!" And one of the great standoffs in American political history ensued. Soon, other members of Gold Star Families for Peace, the fledgling but instantly morally authoritative Iraq Vets Against the War, representatives of Military Families Speak Out, local activists from the Crawford Peace House, and concerned citizens of the United States and the world joined Sheehan. Camp Casey sprung up, then Camp Casey II was pitched on land loaned by a courageous Crawfordian who had become disgusted by the behavior of some of the locals toward the respectful assembly of citizens who still clung to the belief that the president of the United States is accountable to the people he serves.

This attracted the national media, myself included, who was dispatched there by Air America’s Randi Rhodes. Nineteen days later, I returned inspired by the rebirth of the American peace movement. Bush could have avoided the whole mess by facing one sincere mother; instead he stuck to form and hid from conflict that would require his actual participation. Sheehan gave Bush a shove down a slope that was about to become much slipperier.

A MIGHTY WIND

Camp Casey was so traumatic for W that he was probably relieved when Hurricane Katrina’s epic storm surge washed Cindy Sheehan out of the headlines. As ever, Bush was careless about what he wished for, and soon the world was looking at shocking aerial views of a country run by dim frat boys.

George W. Bush and Dick Cheney sold themselves as offering the kind of adult supervision this country needs in time of crisis. Homeland security is their alleged strong suit, but apparently someone forgot to brief them on the fact that the most important part of homeland security is land itself. Their slow response to thousands of stranded victims made many realize that terra firma is an even bigger concern than terror.

Bush sent the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s director Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown (W has such a knack for nicknames!), who had risen to the top of our nation’s crisis-management team because he was the most qualified former college roommate of a Bush crony available. Ever detail-oriented, Brown immediately distinguished himself by surveying the area for suitable restaurants and carefully considering the proper attire to wear to a massive human calamity. As the water rose and the evacuees’ plight grew worse, Brown assured a concerned nation that there was really nothing we could do right away for those thousands of people yelling, "Help! Help! Help!" in unison. Now what’s for lunch?

Eventually, FEMA distinguished itself by evacuating the one most truly helpless person on the Gulf Coast: Brownie. Bush then made a series of visits to the region, promising all who would listen that rebuilding the area, and particularly New Orleans, was his top priority — at least until he could distract the American people from the crucial city that had been lost on the "watch" he’s always reminding us he’s on.

BOTTOMS UP?

After Katrina, it began to seem that Bush’s actions and policies were nothing more than the result of drunken bar bets. In fact, the very reputable National Enquirer posited that W was back on the bottle. That would explain Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers: Watch this, this’ll be funny — the next person that walks in here, I’m naming to the Supreme Court.

Two interesting stories came out in December. The first exposed Bush’s practice of wire-tapping American citizens without so much as clearing the microscopic hurdle of obtaining a special secret-court warrant. But hey, if you don’t have anything to hide, what are you worried about?

And then the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a research group at Syracuse University, discovered that the administration, breaking with a tradition of openness that began in 1816, has decided to withhold the names and work locations of about 900,000 government civilian workers. If we don’t know who’s working for the government, we don’t know who to ask what the government is doing. If they don’t have anything to hide, why are they hiding 900,000 people? Too bad they didn’t have this policy when Valerie Plame still had her job.